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LONDON (Reuters) – British health officials have reactivated emergency hospitals built at the start of the pandemic to deal with an increase in COVID-19 cases which is putting existing services under extreme pressure, especially in London .
The UK has recorded more than 50,000 new daily cases of the virus in the past four days, in part due to a much more contagious new variant and an increase in the number of people dying every day.
Doctors have warned they are struggling to cope, especially when so many colleagues are sick or have to self-isolate, and paramedics and nurses have had to treat patients in ambulances due to a lack of available beds .
An email to Royal London Hospital staff said he was now in “disaster medicine mode”.
A spokesperson for the National Health Service (NHS) said Nightingale Hospital in London was ready to reopen if necessary.
“In anticipation of increasing pressures as the new variant of the infection spread, the London area of the NHS has been urged to ensure the Nightingale is reactivated and ready to admit patients when needed,” a- she declared. “This process is ongoing.”
The hospital, based in the Excel Exhibition Center in London’s Docklands and named after Victorian-era nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, will be staffed with London doctors with additional support from the military and partners voluntary sector if necessary, said the spokesperson.
Nightingale Hospitals are temporary sites built with help from the military within days in March and April, when hospitals first struggled to cope with the influx of COVID-19 patients.
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